


Beef Bourguignon

by amaradangeli



Series: We Made It [13]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cooking, Episode: s05e03 Ascension, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9401276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaradangeli/pseuds/amaradangeli
Summary: She doesn’t know how much longer she can wait.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse
> 
> Beta by Fems

Orlin is a touchy subject between them. Jack seems to want to explain why he was hesitant to be on her side, to be on her team, but she knows. She knows. They're both being careful to avoid the look of impropriety. After that night on his deck they haven't had dinner, but she sure has spent a lot of time thinking about their interlude. 

It's made the need for more a living, breathing thing inside her. She doesn’t know how much longer she can wait. He told her once that sex wasn't going to change as much between them as she thinks it would, but she believes he's wrong. It would change everything. And, perhaps, for the better. 

And while she thinks that, she understands what he meant. That there is already an intimacy between them that won't be changed by the act of sex. They have shared so much in the last handful of years. They have become friends and then more. It feels, almost, like the sex is merely a missing, not altogether important piece of the puzzle.  

But that doesn't mean she doesn't want it. 

Be that as it may, however, it does not stop the betrayal she feels at Jack's lack of support duing the entire alien incident. He seemed to almost laugh at her at one point and that hurt. She's never made a habit of lying to him and for him to believe she'd be anything other than genuine about what was happening actually, physically, hurt. 

It's that pain that causes her to second guess her presence in his driveway. More than once she's seen a curtain move that tells her he's aware she's sitting in her car. It takes a long time for him to come out the front door and meander down the walk and then to rap on her window with his knuckles. She takes a deep breath then reaches for the door handle. 

He takes a step back, lets her climb out of the car. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't touch her, he just gives her this look that tells her he knows he's on her list. 

"I wasn't sure I was coming tonight," she says when it's clear that she's going to have to be the first one to talk. 

He nods. "I wasn't sure either." He had, however, issued the invitation and she found that despite everything, she couldn’t turn it down. "Dinner's just about ready." 

A pang of sadness shoots through her. He cooked without her. She'd dallied so long he was sure she wasn't coming and he'd cooked without her. She'll admit to herself, and to him if he asks, that the act of cooking with him fulfills that need for intimacy that she's been feeling for a long time. It feels like something personal they do together and, she'd thought, they used that as a way to sublimate deeper desires. 

Not that her deeper desires are all that sublimated lately. 

She blows out a breath through pursed lips and steps up to him, invading his personal space. His arms hang limply by his sides. That causes her physical pain, too, that he doesn't immediately reach for her – that he doesn't feel he can. She places her hands flat on his chest, studiously looks at them pressed there against him, and sighs. 

He cocks his head to the side and then lifts his hand to move a lock of hair off her forehead. His fingers thread into her hair and she feels herself melt into him. She is liquid and he is the vessel, she molds herself to the curvature of his hand, nuzzles against his palm, revels in the way his strong fingers spread across her skull. 

Her easy acquiescence to his touch seems to spur him on. He leans in for a kiss. Initially, he leaves it light but soon his passion is ignited and his kiss becomes demanding and, incongruously, somewhat apologetic. She accepts the penance on his tongue as she slides her hands around and underneath his arms to hold him against her aching body. She wants him, this kiss has done little more than fan the flames inside her. 

She moves her body against his in a way that can't be misconstrued. He pulls back from the kiss and looks into her eyes. She thinks he's going to say yes. Then she thinks he's going to say no. Instead he says, "Come help me finish up dinner." 

Her disappointment comes on an exhale that he pretends not to hear. He snags her hand, laces their fingers together and leads her into the house. A rich smell invades her senses immediately and causes her stomach to tighten with anticipation. "Smells good," she ventures, knowing that he's fixated on the dinner and is, for some reason, slightly skittish about taking things further between them when he'd been the one, all that time ago, to tell her that more wasn't going to change things as much as she thought. She doesn't know if he's changed his mind or if there's just something on it. 

"It's [Beef Bourguignon](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS719US719&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=591&q=Beef+Bourguignon&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB_Jeus8_RAhUjwFQKHYB0AHoQvwUIFygA)." 

He's apologizing with his food. It's Tuesday night and he went through the effort of making the rich and flavorful stew. "What's left to be done?" 

He sets her up in front of a cutting board with a loaf of crusty bread and a sharp bread knife. It feels strange to reduce their ritual to the slicing of bread, but she knows what this is, it's more atonement, it's just different than his hand down her pants. But it's the same, a little, too. This whole thing is his way of taking care. She needs, and he provides what he can. And sometimes, sometimes, he feels the need to apologize to her for something. And he's a man for whom actions speak louder than words. 

She's overcome by him quite suddenly. "I love you," she says, her eyes on the bread and the very sharp knife. "That's why it hurt me that you didn't support me. I love you." 

"I know," he says, his voice thick behind her. She can tell he's looking at her, can practically feel his eyes burning into her back. 

He can't say _I'm sorry_. He can't say _next time, I will_ , because next time will be something different and he's just a man. A flawed man. She might love him, but she can accept that. She can, because she's a flawed woman. There are things she could have done differently during the Orlin experience. She could have demanded from Jack what she needed. She could have, likely should have, cited their relationship. But they've made no commitments. They can't. And, therefore, it sometimes feels like the thing between them is too ephemeral to support the weight of the needs of daily life. 

They exist in the bubble of his kitchen. The realization makes her throat tighten uncomfortably. She suddenly truly understands what it means to be in this relationship with him. How limited they are. And she knows, then, that sex is a bridge they have to cross. There is so much they can't have that it's undeniably important that they take the things they can. 

Behind her he's putting stew in bowls. She pulls a plate out of the cupboard and piles the too many slices of bread she's cut onto it. At the table, they eat quietly. After several bites, Jack gets up and disappears into the kitchen. He returns with two glasses of red wine and wordlessly sets one down in front of her. 

She's halfway through her meal when he says, quietly, "I love you, too." 

She wants to ask him why, then, he didn't back her up. Why he left her blowing in the breeze of the brass. Why he allowed all of it to happen. 

But she knows. She's back to the realization that there can't be a single hint of impropriety. He maybe wanted to help her, and maybe, before they started their relationship, he could have, would have. But things now are too precarious. There are skeletons in their closet.  

"I want more." There, she's said it. She'd previously told him that what was already between them was enough, but it's not true.  

He deliberately sets his spoon down on the table before turning chocolate brown and serious eyes on her. "Are you sure?" 

"I'm ready." 

"It won't change what I can do for you in situations like that." 

She knows it's true, but it hurts to hear him say that it won't, that it can't, close a significant gap between them. She attempts a compromise. "Within these walls you're not my commanding officer. Let the conversation here be between us, not _them_." 

She doesn't have to clarify for him the distinction between _Jack and Sam_ and _Colonel and Major_. He nods slowly. "Okay." He doesn't pursue the notion that there are things he can't be for her.  

She appreciates not being reminded of what they aren't when she desperately wants to focus on what they are. What they can have seems suddenly so much more important than what they can't have. It seems like the answer to a question they haven't asked yet. 

She tingles with the awareness of what's coming. They finish their meal in silence but it's anticipatory rather than uncomfortable. 

In the kitchen, when she sets their bowls into the sink, he crowds her against the edge of the counter. The formica bites into the soft, fleshy part of her belly. She can feel him behind her, solid, warm, and already hard. He leans his head down to nuzzle at her ear. He kisses the shell of it and reminds her in a low voice how he feels about her. His hands land on her hips. He presses into her and she can't help the sound she makes. He makes her feel heavy and light all at the same time. She's not altogether sure she can walk, but she finds herself being led down the hall to his bedroom. 

"You're sure?" He asks her, one more time, when they stop at the foot of his bed. 

"I'm sure," she says. 

When he breathes her name in the next moment she knows he's as overcome with the weight of how they're changing, the same as she is and it makes her feel more ready, more prepared for the things that come next. Even if those things won't change how they live their visible lives. But she knows that they're about to change how they live this life, the one that exists inside the walls of his house. And she knows that she hasn't misled either one of them. She is, in fact, ready. 


End file.
